Actually OK I can be open AF about this now that I'm Mostly Leaving, might be closure for someone out there so lmfao lemme have at it

So. If we used to be friends or mutuals and I unfollowed you and you're in the TES fandom, especially a couple years ago, or Ive been ignoring your posts, or anything like that sort of weird behaviour with you..... Yeah so for years and years now I've had this deep paranoia that a lot of people in the fandom genuinely hate me and I really can't divide it from reality (thank you if you were considering saying something positive, but unfortunately it doesn't work I just gotta love with it), so I've been actively avoiding people (in general, but also certain people) for a long time to avoid being in their hair. I don't actually know if any of yall DO hate me but.... If I suddenly just dumped following you or stopped interacting with your posts and you noticed? If I'd ever told you I really appreciated you or your art and then suddenly was no longer there? Etc etc? Yeah no its not you

A kind of partial goodbye -

TLDR:

made a new account and probably won't be back on more than maybe once a year if that, thank you for everything

Long version:

Oh oof so. I've really needed to remake my tumblr for a while and due to some personal reasons I caved and did, expecting to be able to join this blog on my new account as a member, like with my art blog. I. Apparently cannot! Now I won't be permanently gone, I don't intend to abandon this account but.... I won't be logging in again unless it's to post on this account and, I'll be honest, two main reasons are going to make this supremely rare. A) I already only rarely post on this account lmfaO, and B) for a few months now I've actually been completely avoiding TES games. I've promised I'm not going to play any TES games other than oblivion, morrowind, and ESO because Skyrim (and Dragon Age, and I'm betting any money the next TES game which I shouldn't be buying) are really bad for my connection to reality - the catch is I don't play morrowind, lost interest in ESO, and my oblivion, love of my life, is just..... broken even when redownloaded from fresh. I literally can't play it physically. Which means I'm not going to have much of a use for this blog, am I.

I actually have had a TES aesthetics blog for a while now that's been a wip so I haven't shared, but it's really the only thing I can take with me to the new blog (I'm still not up for linking personals on this blog) so I'll still be around there - @lakeilinalta - but that'll probably be about it, if I continue using it

Dunno how long it'll be til I post again so, you know, sad as fuck I may not get to see this blogs decade anniversary in... Two years? One year? And again it's not a permanent absolute leaving Deleting Bye but.... This blog already was barely used so oof.

So, teveryone who's followed me since around the beginning or recently alike, hey, thank you! Running this blog was literally the most positive social media experience I have ever had bar maybe only my formative years growing up on deviantart, making art and stories with friends and sharing memes and staying up all night on call when I was a baby teenager a decade ago, which was fan-fuckin-tastic and, as I said, formative to my existence so that'll have to come first... But honestly my years here were formative too, and even with barely being on this blog it's followed me growing up into adulthood and yall are a bigger part of the experience of running it than I an it ever could be, so sincerely, thank you.

To everyone who's never gotten a reply from me/to everyone who was the last to reply in a conversation: I'm so sorry, I do that to literally every single person, not a single instance of this was ever personal - serious when I say not a single person, I know who's in there and..... Its never been personal. To everyone I used to be friends with/otherwise here and drifted from (or didn't bloody reply to LMFAO), yall are cool AF, stay funky, sorry I had to leave yall hanging but none of you ever did anything wrong so remember that

Hopefully I'll be on in my usual Every Few Months manner but I really can't guarantee it BC I changed blogs before I started this one way back when, thinking it'd be temporary, and never looked back so..... Yall stay safe out there. Thanks for being such a positive force in my life ✌️

Cool

"Stand by! I'm putting you on speaker crab!"

- Sheogorath

Oblivion could do the Dawnguard dlc, but Skyrim couldn't do Shivering Isles

As a Hirrus Clutumnus stan I got to hear your 2 pieces on him. Also, as a mentally ill person, what are your thoughts on Shivering Isles? (There are parts I rlly vibe with but I understand a lot of it is played for laughs, and I've never had psychosis so idk how people who experience that feel about it. i can only see it from a depression/anxiety/ocd lense)

ooooooooo youre bringing in the REAL good questions here

Heads up for mentions of suicide and assisted suicide, oh and spoilers for an old as fuck game

So, for a long but necessary background, because if Im gonna talk on this i need to be explicit where I'm coming from regarding it, I have StPD AKA diagnosed shivering isles resident at psychiatrist disorder. That for me includes delusions and a lot of paranoia, perceptual hallucinations, magical thinking, highly spiritual angle to life... actually ironic this question comes in now bc my deity has been like. get into and talk about madness for a few days now. take that as an example if you want, including a lot of reading of signs and stuff. basically. talking to things that most people dont think can talk, eccentricity in thought processes and dress and speaking, issues speaking outloud bc words and sentences get jumbled/etc, and connecting the dots between things that aren't related (eg "if I turn this light on the grass outside will stop growing and the farmer will get mad"). Its... also relevant to answering this in a different way to say that Im autistic so... I kinda struggle with discerning the intent behind creating the Isles (like, as you said, being played for laughs) vs the homely feeling I personally get from it.

So yeah, tldr i fucking FEEL the isles, and i may not be the best at interpreting them right

On to the answer (under read more only bc its long)

Hirrus:

Oh man, seriously, as someone whos struggled with depression for a long ass time and..... relevant feelings...... I LOVE how brutally honestly Hirrus is approached. Actually that tends to be one of my favourite parts of how the Isles are approached in general, in that they don't shy away from the brutality of mental illness. Its not just "haha funny goofy land" its "bunch of people brought together by Issues" Like... I know the brutality is probably to show that Sheogorath is a DAEDRIC PRINCE not to be taken lightly (although i am SURE there were a lot of people struggling w mental issues on the Isles dev team who wanted to depict it like this for the sake of realism) but like... Mental illness as Im sure you get as a Hirrus Stan is not just quirky little things but something that devastates lives. It doesnt JUST do that but ill get to that in the overall isles opinion. I think no matter whether the developers are mentally ill or not, if theyre going to approach these topics there needs to be a level of "yep this is fucked up" - in a VERY specific way though. If Hirrus was played in a way that was about the HoK's horRor and suFferINg meeting Hirrus id be like. ew. but since youre literally just meeting someone going through SHIT in a fantasy world.... Oh, the fantasy world bit is super relevant. I think id have some issues with it if it was in our world - the whole hill of suicides thing is absolutely extremely relevant imo as to why this is not just acceptable but a great bit of storytelling. "The real world is dark and dangerous, help someone kill themselves"= dangerous DANGEROUS thing to put in a story. "Im going to show you how fucked up this fantasy world is, and its so fucked up that it turns helping someone kill themselves into a merciful and good bit of storytelling"= good. i like that. The way its implemented is really good storytelling IMO.

On the Isles themselves:

I think it boils down to... Theres a fine line to be walked when talking about mental illness, and even if its played for laughs, they still did it right. Well, i mean. For an old game.

Tbh?? I dont think mental illness, as i touched upon above, is just about devastation and loss and struggles, its also like.... A fantastic thing. I dont have a love-hate relationship w my StPD but a love-....babysit. relationship. Some days its awful like when im convinced bad triggering shit i wont mention is about to happen, somedays my perceptual hallucinations kick in and the world is suddenly oversaturated colours and burningly hi definition, somedays it really helps with grounded things in that i tend to be creative bc i can see reality in weird ways, or it helps (SOMETIMES) with divination and whatnot. But its always something less of a horror assigned to me and more of a confused seriously sight-impaired clone who cant see the world properly and i have to guide them around - StPD comes in between me and my ability to perceive the world around me. The whole display of the divided isles is, yes, a litttlleeee outdated bc i think its meant to partially reference bipolar disorder which, kinda gross thing to do but i guess understandable if you know fuck all about not insulting mentally ill people, and using words like dementia as an aesthetic is a little off-putting, but its so.... homely to have this stark acceptance that illness is a huge consuming SWAMP of a fuckin thing, twisted and dangerous, but also fantastical, inviting, super/post-real.... Mania is my fucking favourite area bc yeah. it approaches what life feels like when the good StPD Issues kick in. This divide also really shows how StPD and similar illnesses work, but colouring (pun intended given the colour schemes) your world view, and turning everyday things (trees, animals) into horrific, desolate things - or weird, beautiful, fantastical things because thats what it FEELS like. plus i think just because some of the devs intended to make this world in reference to a few things, doesnt mean the end product isnt an accurate portrayal of other things. Just because im sure some were like "oo lets use bipolar/dementia/etc for aesthetics" and got it wrong, doesnt mean its not an accurate depiction of other unrelated mental illnesses.

Thats a little subjective but.... on a different note. I think a HUGE thing that makes the Isles work for being a good/palatable depiction as opposed to a bad one is the fact that the Hero BECOMES SHEOGORATH. and the whole questline leading up where you BECOME a member of the isles and really get to know them is..... Is so so paramount to how this Works so it isnt just some zoo you stroll around. Youre either With the Isles AND their population or..... the questline isnt for you. Another HUGE thing is the fact that everyone just......... ugh how do i put this bc of course theres conflict between characters in the isles..... But it just feels like home having StPD where theres this place that everyone has their own thing going on and no one really condemns them for it, not in the way real life does, like. Ah. I guess id say it like: itd be boring as shit if every character was like "oh my GOD everyone around me is CRAZYYYY not ME though" like.... when you have groups of friends that are all Mentally Ill Luv x you can sort of relax and all be your own various shades of the rainbow you know?? Real life tends to see me have to train myself to act normal and not display illness symptoms bc im the odd one out for some reason. The Isles is..... So you know that study done showing how autistics struggle socially with non autistics but can get along fine together? Yeah reminds me of that, where NTs will condemn and belittle and other everyone with serious mental illness - and so if youre a NT youd think that NDs would do the same, just like non autistics think autistics couldnt communicate together - but it takes a level of insight into this to understand in a lot of our friend groups we.... dont fall apart, we actually start to understand each other as similar in different ways. We find other ways to have cohesive social groups without all being in touch with the same version of reality. Whether the devs meant the isles as thought out like that or "haha imagine people being sooooo crazy they dont even know other people are crazy" well, we wont know, but again - an inaccurate attempt to portray one thing can turn into an accurate way to portray another.

Plus, honestly.... There comes a point where, like the whole "theres no ethical consumption under capitalism" thing, I think it matters less the devs intentions and more how the consumer consumes it. If youre NT and like it? I think the issue is when its "haha weird ass crazy people funny, im so glad im not these dudes hey look at how stupid they are", but if youre approaching it like "damn this is a wacky place where people have some serious issues and im going to enjoy the storyline and the humour without treating it like a digital freak show" then i mean.... Idk. Not sure on that angle logically but I do know I dont have that jugdmental reaction to people enjoying it when they arent like the people depicted in the isles

Tldr: I like it. Its either well thought out or a bunch of happy accidents. I think that we can all argue/debate on the intent behind it? Which, if this was created by one singular person, would be EXTREMELY relevant, but since its a whooooole dev team IMO the individual intents matter a little less than the end product as an independent thing. And because of that, the fact that it feels so much like home to people like me, and because yes, it may be played for laughs, but a lot of it (Hirrus for one great example) really is not meant to be funny, and because youre MEANT to become a part of it (and therefore see these people as YOUR people), i think........ Its perfectly alright to really appreciate the isles and enjoy its depiction of people like me - i mean... Lets be honest here.... If it was inaccurate, you wouldnt have as many people on the schizospec and psychotic spec being like damn we love this as we do have

Rainy Riverwood

[You toss the four large kwama eggs into the air. They fall right back down on the floor, bursting and splattering you and your audience.]

–The Nerevarine attempting to juggle without the ability to juggle.

The Anniversary Edition of Skyrim changes the Imperial Dragon to imitation gold.

I reblogged that post about hotboxing the DB sanctuary in a general sense and now all my recommended posts are. Cicero

hotboxing the entire dark brotherhood sanctuary

Green Apple

Green Apple

European TES fans be like. doesn't know torchbug is not what torchbugs are called irl even through mentioning them to unsuspecting people in conversations for years under the name torchbugs. cringe

Did You Know? The Thieves Guild in Riften is based out of the sewers, which is traditionally where the stinkiest smells in the city are located, along with other vermin.

Pictured: Brynjolf from TES: Legends.

Pictured: A victorious crab.